SPURS GAME DAY! GAME 72: SPURS VS. PELICANS, 18-3-2022, 7:30PM (CT)

[imagump1313]

Just got in to watch. Wow!

Highlight of the night courtesy of our most passionate team member:

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LOL, he called him an MFer right before he winked at him....

[G R E Y]

We TO it, they race behind our D for the dunk.

We TO it, they hit a 3.

We inbound they steal it by poking it from behind. Luckily it was also an over and back for them. Just uuugh...

[G R E Y]

4TH Q: SPURS 91

PELICANS 124

I'm hungry... need a snack before the write-up.

EDIT to add: This incredible graphic. Note the bottom right LOL

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Also, from Pop:

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Just. Move. On.

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Ok, so some things that stood out:

When Doug went down, Pop chose the 3 and D vet JRich to start even though Lonnie's been here longer, knows our system better and has actually started for us plenty before.

Now when JRich couldn't play, Pop chose the ultra green rookie Primo with Lonnie coming from the bench. Perhaps it's for continuity and the scoring punch that we need.

But JRich can score plenty, too, and when we had him he started. He is the better defender, and he is taller, and he does shoot the 3 more efficiently. And in the interests of development, Primo being in there is a huge opportunity for him.

I'm not going to over-think it. Just stood out, and I think Pop's more about finding opportunities for the guards and see how the development is progressing, and give Lonnie some continuity that he's finally flourishing in.

DJ. He's worked hard all year to step up his game and become our leader and leading scorer. The young guys look up to and rely on him to show them the ropes. He earned the All-Star selection on terrific play and showed out well. Since then, both he and opponents have changed.

DJ's still getting his stats, and he's taking more 3s and driving more, too. All good. But he's also getting scouted and contested aggressively. He's become the primary D target because teams know that we largely go as DJ does. And so he got trapped repeatedly after dribbling into the upper left corner of the court, and he got stripped repeatedly as teams doubled him to seal up the elbows, and teams sent help D from behind to take away the space he spins into at the top of the key and he got stripped. It was textbook D on him and was really effective in disrupting us running our plays.

He over-dribbled, passed horizontally to get the ball back and then shoot (not in our play arsenal) rather than create ball movement and more vertical effort. And when these didn't work, he went into over-dribbling ISO mode. Another 5TOs in this game. DJ needs to learn to anticipate the doubles better, give up the ball sooner, and the team has to be more aware of the situation developing, too, and get to spots where he can pass it out of doubles.

We took 44 3s which was nearly 50% of our 89FGAs (our starting back court tandem combined for 6-15 - either a concerted effort to take the shot or a concerted effort team-wide to settle for it) so our interior and drive game was nullified by both the paint being sealed up and our not generating enough push for chances in transition. Just not nearly enough adjustments to get out of our comfort shots, to put in more effort in transition, to be more physical, to be more fundamental.

We were on the wrong end of 50-34 points in the paint and three fewer made 3s on far better efficiency. Joe was the only Spur who shot the 3 well, making 3-5.

Even with a smaller lineup, we got outhustled and didn't box out well for their multiple O boards and putbacks in our end. The 58-40 rebounding difference (13-8 on O) was also a function of all the shots we missed and us just not fighting well enough in either end. All the misses, after all, were opportunities for us to get putbacks from second chances as well. It was interesting how at one point in the 2ND Q DJ was furious at his team mates for being the only Spur down low, mismatched versus a big, doing all the hard work down low by himself. He had every right to be. We were spectators for too of these possessions, ball watching as opponents went to the ball. It tends to find players who put in the effort.

In other ball protection we dropped the ball as well: 16TOs from their 13 steals on which we gave up 22 points. Several of these were just careless with giving up the ball right after we got it either from a steal or a rebound. We even got it poked from behind on an inbounds pass with two Spurs standing there and losing the ball. Their zealous effort resulted in an over-and-back TO but how we lost it was still telling.

The last several games it seems like we doubled down on trying to outscore opponents and take plays off on D and it caught us with back wind. I lost count how many times we didn't bother running out to contest their 3s. And in the times we did, no hands up. Amazing. Even DJ at times. Even more amazing.

Jakob's refusal to dunk is irritating. He and Keldon struggled to be efficient and got burned on D time and again. Jakob tends to sag on his C counterparts and got burned for all the space he gave up. He was also bodied down low a lot. Keldon wither didn't run out to contest or didn't get his hands up on contests consistently. And when their shots weren't falling, the D got exposed all the more.

Zach has a ROUGH 1-10, 0-5 from 3, with 5 boards, 3 assists, and 1 block; Jock was a little better, mirroring Jakob's 3-7 overall, but was 0-2 from 3, 2-2FTs but put in good work on the boards grabbing 7 (3 on O), with 2 assists, and 1 steal.

Tre is 3-36 (I believe) for the season from the arc. 0-3 in this game. He tried a C&S 3 and off his dribble 3 and nada. Top of the summer to-do list.

Devin worked hard to go over screens and stay with his man, seal up driving lanes, and contest well. He almost single-handedly forced a shot clock turnover. He struggled to score efficiently but still scored 18 on 6-13, 3-7 from 3, 3-4FTs along with 2 boards, 1 assist, and 1 steal.

Primo tries but he's green. His being out there in this state shows as much Pop's change in approach to the young team as it does to his commitment to development. I don't know how much more Primo could get from G-League, and we did make a trade to make room for more guard PT. He was inefficient again, missing all his 3s, but he was one of the few Spurs who drove hard and led us with 5-5FTs.

His rookie counterpart played his role well. Joe played third fewest minutes but still led the bench in scoring with 11 on 4-6, 3-5 from 3, with 2 assists, and 1 block. He looks a bit more filled out, and plays with more confidence. Nice to see him get some minutes to show his game.

How bad was our start? Lonnie only played 5 minutes and was a -13 in them. He went in early to sub in for Primo to get us some juice but we couldn't generate any O and it didn't help that we stubbornly settled for outside shots. We had SEVEN points towards the end of the 1ST Q until Primo drove for a layup and +1 conversion.

I hope Lonnie is back and fully healthy soon. Same for JRich, and Keita.

We scored more with each Q, so that's a positive, but we couldn't limit their scoring; their lowest scoring Qs were 29. That alone is emblematic of what we tried to do to get ourselves out of our hole and how it went. We just doubled down on O rather than D effort. Bless the fans who stayed for the whole game when we were down 20 with 3 and a half minutes left in the 1ST Q alone.

We've had game where we struggled to score, but we made some effort to push through and create some runs, but this one was a throw away from just about start to finish. Good for some of the younger guys to get more minutes... and that's about it for benefits.

Truly a throw away game and so we finish the home stand 3-4. As a comparison, we fared better on the RRT. Perhaps the latter took something out of us for the home stretch, as did getting over the hump of reaching the all time regular season wins record for Pop. We're still learning, and hopefully there's a lesson in not turning into whoever we thought we were trying to out-gun opponents with taking D off.

Seems like all it takes is one guy missing an assignment and the rest just stop playing D because of all the times they've had to cover for missed assignments. It doesn't help that we're essentially small ball around Jakob unless Pop chooses Zach to start. That's one two-bigs line-up we have yet to see, I believe. Anyway, the most important thing is getting back to defense basics. Start and build up from there on the next four games on the road. We HAVE to get back to our D-out identity first and foremost. All else flows from there for us.